READING ASSESMENT TECNIQUE

READING COMPREHENSION

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

DECODING

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE

PHONOLOGY

SEMANTICS

SYNTAX

CHIPER KNOWLEDGE

LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE

PHONEME AWARENESS

KNOWLEDGE OF ALPHABATIC

PRINCIPLE

LETTER KNOWLEDGE

CONCEPT ABOUT PRINT

READING COMPREHENSION

Asking a child to read a passage of text that is levelled appropriately for the child, and then asking some explicit, detailed questions about the content of the text (often these are called IRIs).

Cloze task — words are omitted from the passage, and the child is asked to fill in the blanks with appropriate words.

Asking them to read and follow simple instructions, such as, "Stand up" or, "Go look out the window.“

The child reads a passage out loud while the teacher makes note of errors the child makes (sometimes called a "running record"), and then the child is asked some comprehension questions about the passage.

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION the child should not be expected to read any text.

Everything from the instructions to the comprehension questions should be presented verbally to the child.

A child that is not able to read and understand a passage of text usually has no difficulty understanding the text if somebody else reads it to her. However, sometimes teachers find that a child who can not read and understand a passage of text also does not understand it when the teacher reads it to the child.

It is always worthwhile to compare a child’s language comprehension with her reading comprehension to be sure that her ability to understand text is not being limited by her ability to understand language.

DECODING Typically, decoding skill is measured through the

child’s ability to read words out of context. Isolated words are presented to the child one at a time, and the child is asked to say the word aloud.

A child can be tested on their accuracy (Is each word pronounced correctly?), their fluency (How much does the child struggle with word naming?), or their "level" — Levelled lists of words are provided by many publishers, and the child can be assessed as to her ability to decode words that are of varying difficulties.

Decoding is a strategy that readers can use on all words, even words they’ve never seen before.

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE Measure of the child’s relevant background

knowledge.

A particular child may not know much about a particular topic, and it is worthwhile to assess a child’s relevant background knowledge before expecting a child to be able to accomplish a task.

LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE Linguistic Knowledge is the synthesis of three more

basic cognitive elements -- phonology, semantics, and syntax.

Linguistic knowledge is more than the sum of it's parts, but it does not lend itself to explicit assessment.

A child may have a grasp on the more basic cognitive elements, but still have trouble blending these elements together into a stable linguistic structure.

If a child appears to have a grasp of the more basic cognitive elements, but is still having difficulty expressing themselves or understanding others, it is likely that the child has not yet managed to synthesize those elements.

PHONOLOGY

The most common assessment for phonology involves discriminating between two words that sound similar. (sh, s)

There is some merit to this approach because the child’s attention is focused on the words themselves, and not on the meanings of the words.

SEMANTICS A test of semantics at the larger-than-word level may involve

asking a child to arrange a series of pictures to reflect a logical sequence of events.

Asking a child to provide a word that best matches a definition presented (verbally) by the teacher as a test of expressive vocabulary, or to ask a child to provide a definition to a word as a test of receptive vocabulary

Semantics assessments at the larger-than-word level usually depend on identifying words or sentences that do not make sense in the context (e.g. "Billy had a dog. He loved his dog. His fish was orange. His dog could fetch a ball."), or they depend on the child identifying logical inconsistencies (e.g. "Billy’s dog could fetch and he could roll over. He was a good dog, but he didn’t know any tricks.").

SYNTAX A child can be asked to identify sentences (spoken) that are

syntactically incorrect (e.g. Jane and her dog the hill they climbed it.), and additionally, the child can be asked to restructure the sentence correctly.

Another common syntax test involves presenting the child with sentences which have one word omitted, and asking the child to suggest words that could fill the blanks (eg. "Mary fell off of the ___" with any of several obviously appropriate words)

Another assessment of syntax that could be used involves the child’s ability to combine simple sentences into complex sentences, and to add modifiers appropriately. So for example, "Brownies taste good" could be combined with, "Mary likes to eat brownies" to make the complex sentence, "Mary likes to eat brownies because they taste good.”

Similarly, a child’s syntax can be assessed through a test of their ability to change tense and modifiers of sentences. A child could be asked to restructure, "I went to the store" to the future tense.

CHIPER KNOWLEDGE The best test of the child’s ability to sound out regular

words is to ask them to name isolated (out of context) words that they are not familiar with.

For young readers who are not quite able to sound out regular words, it is appropriate to test their basic letter-sound knowledge (which is a precursor to regular word reading).

Common letter-sound knowledge assessments ask a child to identify a letter that could represent a speech sound (e.g. Identify the letter that makes the /s/ sound.)

In some assessments of letter-sound knowledge, the letters are embedded in the context of words, and the child is asked to identify the first letter (or sometimes the vowel sound) of a spoken word.

LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE

Whereas a test of regular word reading is strengthened by using words that the child is not familiar with, any test of irregular word reading should use words that one could reasonably expect the child to be familiar with.

This can be accomplished using levelled word lists, or by using words from previous vocabulary lessons, or from the levelled texts that the children are reading from.

Once the words are chosen for an appropriate test of irregular word reading, the test can take one of several formats. The child can be asked to simply read the words aloud, or the child could be asked to find a word from a set that does not belong with the others (e.g. LINT, MINT, PINT

PHONEME AWARENESS In phoneme segmentation task, a pause is inserted after

each phoneme (/sat/ � /s/ /a/ /t/), and in a phoneme blending task, a segmented word is blended together to make a whole word (/s/ /a/ /t/ � /sat/).

In addition to phoneme segmentation or blending tasks, there are several other phoneme awareness tasks can be used to show that the child is aware of all of the phonemes in spoken words. For example, a child can be asked to count the number of phonemes in a word (e.g. how many phonemes are in the word PIN?),

Finally, children clearly have phoneme awareness if they are able to identify a phoneme in different words. Children should know that the words SAT and TOP both contain the /t/ sound.

KNOWLEDGE OF ALPHABATIC PRINCIPLE A child’s understanding of the alphabetic principle can be

assessed very early, even before the child can read or write simple words.

Similarly, a child’s knowledge of the alphabetic principle can be tested in other ways. Children can be presented with two words (written) — one long word and one short word. The teacher asks the child to pick the word they think she is saying (and she would say either a very long word or a very short word; e.g. HAT or HIPPOPOTOMOUS. The words can get closer in length as the child learns the object of the assessment.). Even if the child can not read yet, an understanding of the alphabetic principle will allow her to pick the right word.

LETTER KNOWLEDGE Typically, testing a child’s knowledge of the letters of

the alphabet involves presenting the child with a page full of letters, and asking the child to name them.

Young children who do not know the letter names yet can be given a pile of manipulable letters and numbers and symbols and asked to separate the letters from the numbers and symbols.

Children that know all the letter names can be further tested by their ability to separate the letters into upper- and lower-case groups, or to separate them into vowels and consonants.

CONCEPT ABOUT PRINT Again, a child’s writing is a good way to reveal their

understanding of the mechanics of text. Even children that are not writing well-formed letters can reveal what they know about print

A teacher can also observe how the child handles a book, and can assess the child’s knowledge about how information is presented in the book. A teacher can determine the child’s general knowledge of books